See the world in STEREO. We are a brand and communication agency based in Copenhagen, Denmark and Bengaluru, India. We drive brands and businesses forward with compelling stories and engaging brand experiences. We work for impact, using methods drawn from communication, rhetorics, business development and design. Our team consists of senior consultants and designers with experience from a wide range of industries.

Want to know more about us? We are always open to new ideas, so don’t hesitate to contact us.

STEREO WORKS FOR IMPACT

We work for positive impact. Whether you are looking to grow your business, retain employees, attract customers or build reputation, STEREO is all about making it happen.

In our world strategy always comes first, building experiences that engage people next, and finally, consistent execution across touchpoints. That’s the key to creating impact that truly makes a difference.

WE THINK STRATEGY FIRST

In our world strategy comes first. We see any branding, communication or design exercise as a vehicle for a strategic move. To be good for business whatever you do as a brand must appeal to both hearts and minds. We anchor all projects in asking for the purpose and strategic vision for the client. If it is not clear, we help phrase it and make it work emotionally as well as rationally.

Dive into our methods, and see the outcome below.

STRATEGY / Danish Regions

Sometimes impact is more of a bare necessity than a marketing goal. Imagine that you have to make a whole country listen to what you have to say. The Danish Regionsrun the country’s hospitals and are currently spending billions on modernising them. STEREO’s task was to create the platform for why the investment is done and what the benefits are. Our solution was a nationwide campaign, showing construction from a human point-of-view.

Our “Building For Life” campaign is to anchored in a firm strategy. Citizens and journalists tend to focus on personal implications – with less consideration for the bigger picture.So we aimed at humanising the massive construction project by letting patients, relatives, doctors and nurses tell their story – what do they see as the main outcome and benefit?

We are building today, for all our tomorrows. For our children and our children’s children. The new hospitals are taking into account projections on both demographics and infrastructure. Technology is becoming miniaturised and intelligent. People live longer and closer together. Centralisation is a must and care has to become more efficient. This is no quick-fix, it’s a longterm change based on a longterm strategy.

STEREO shaped the new core story for the New Hospitals 2015-25 and created a campaign aiming to inform general public on two aspects. First of all we are building for life, for our lives and for future lives. Secondly, that many of the building sites were organising an Open House event in September 2017. Event that would serve as the perfect opportunity to get a hands-on experience. The campaign identity was designed to be more friendly than the regular county communication and includedportraits, videos from five new hospitals, infographics and a new website collecting all the relevant information.

Photography by Tuala Hjarnø and videos by Kadaver.

STRATEGY / Postnord

Working with strategy for multinational clients, you often encounter the challenge of making a vision make sense locally. Postnord is the joint postal service of the Scandinavian countries, and for the last decade they have been struggling to modernise and transform from letters to logistics. When Postnord in Denmark left their historic premises and moved to new offices, it was a symbolic change. They are now a lean, digital organisation focussing on infrastructure and B2B. To help them feel at home in their new, connected environment, STEREO created an employer branding campaign that portrayed the everyday heroes of Postnord.

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To better communicate the essence of their brand promise, we expanded it to the more emotional message We deliver – yesterday today and tomorrow’. By showing how their current steadfastness in the face of change is the result of more than a century of diligence, we also gave them the courage to carry that legacy into the future. When ‘we’ is given a series of faces, it becomes much easier to understand what individual employees are contributing. Clients too, will be introduced in this more casual way, to show explain that the new meaning of delivering is interconnected with the world of business in so many ways.

Collages of employees and clients were designed to decorate the new office interiors, mixing series of photos with quotes and stories. The visual expression is based on a pixelation of the fifth element of the their visual identity. By the breaking the box up into pixels, you get a more versatile tool that also signifies for the transformation process Postnord is in. The pixel pattern foil covering every glass surface were automatically generated using Processing, to show how the company utilises contemporary technologies. In the internet-of-things of the near future, their extensive infrastructure and consumer data will be their most valuable assets.

Photography by Tuala Hjarnø.

STRATEGY / SAI Life Sciences

India is a country in rapid transition and growth, which means that brand strategy is in high demand. Companies like SAI Life Sciences is dependent on extremely skilled staff to run and develop their projects for the world’s pharma majors. SAI have worked with STEREO to redefine the communication towards the employees – and also to create a manual that translates the corporate values into concrete day-to-day actions. The challenge was to accommodate both the senior pharmacologists and factory staff with the same basic principles.

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SAI works with discovery and testing of active substances in our future medicines. They rely on their factories delivering around the clock and their research centres functioning like clockwork. To do that employees must understand what it means to work at SAI and what the SAI way of working is. It’s a modern company that relies on flatter hierarchies than their competitors.

Accepting responsibility and fulfilling potential was the message we wanted to convey with the employer branding campaign we created for SAI on the back of redefining their brand strategy. “Make it better together” is STEREO’s definition of the SAI way, and the foundation for igniting the potential of the company, its employees and the society around it’s many locations.

Together with photographer by Kristine Funch, STEREO visited Hyderabad, Bidar and Pune to meet the people behind SAI at all levels – from the factory staff, to laboratory scientists, to office clerks working with anything from HR to sales to mid-level management. By showing how these people are fulfilling their own potential, and helping to move the company in the right direction, it suddenly became easier for everyone to understand that we are all working as a team.

The staff at HQ are now daily looking at employees from around the country, who are all doing their part in making SAI better. The result of the campaign is a set of large portraits and quotes covering the walls of the new head office in Hyderabad. The idea was also to extend the campaign to their intranet. We are currently working with SAI to implement change communication in signage and print form throughout the company.

WE BUILD EXPERIENCES

Engaging people in experiences is key to getting people on board your thinking. Design is an amazing tool to build experiences and engage people in your agenda. To do this we create strong visual identities that are fueled by strategy, verbalised in communication and activated in experiences.

Step into one of the universes we have built below.

EXPERIENCE / Move Mountains

Nowhere is the way we experience brands more apparent than in lifestyle. One of many lifestyle brands we have worked with is Move Mountains, who make simple and durable footwear and outerwear for Scandinavian everyday life. Since they have no dedicated stores, STEREO have developed a strong story and a simple design system for packaging and online presence.

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Move Mountains is a new brand that has become popular among Scandinavian retailers. To capitalise on the popularity, they were in need of updating their design to be bolder and more appealing in the eyes of retailers.

With the intention of expanding their range from hiking shoes to casual shoes and outerwear to suit everyone – the new brand is built on accessibility and durability. The simplicity and charm of outdoor life coupled with a spartan design inspired by Scandinavian tradition is the core of Move Mountains.

“Fit for every day” is expressed not only by the communication, but the whole design system. It is easily adaptable to different formats, materials and products – something that was key for the client. STEREO developed a brand strategy for Move Mountains, that resulted in a new visual identity. The concept included product branding, packaging guidelines, a naming system and digital ideas for websites and social media.

EXPERIENCE / Carlsberg

Over the last few years we have worked with one of the world’s largest brewers, Carlsberg Group, to expand their portfolio and to tap into new markets. During this time, both us and Carlsberg have developed a more experience-based approach. Today, people are not only consumers when they are drinking. They are active on platforms that are more social and interactive than before, and base their decision on things other than just packaging trends.

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One of Carlsberg’s business opportunities is the exponentially growing craft category. While the overall market for beer is shrinking, people crave new exciting products. Carlsberg are well poised to tap into a storytelling based on tradition and local heritage, something that is emblematic of most crafted products. Beer could become as much of a premium product as vintage wine has been historically. It’s all about finding the right partners, personalities and compelling stories – and the possibilities are endless.

This has led us to a deep expertise in craft branding and new categories of alcoholic beverages, based on market research and interviews. STEREO performs qualitative research both in the field and behind the desk . Mapping and analysis enable us to produce accurate trend forecasts.

Building on focussed research, we quickly prototype concepts and work in close collaboration with our client to present a plethora of viable scenarios. Some day, we hope to be able to tell you more.

EXPERIENCE / Just Books

In India the experience economy is only just taking hold. Even so, every city is such an explosion of new impressions that it is even harder to stand out. For many of our Indian clients we have focused on creating clear and intuitive expressions. An entire project was inspired by one simple storefront sign that we came across in Chennai. It became a visual concept for a regional network of libraries and community centres, called Just Books. Their business model is modern and based on digital services, so we coupled this with a brand experience that plays with minimalism, but is simultaneously very easy to understand and adapt.

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Just Books, ironically, offers much more than your regular library. In many places in Bengaluru it is the only place for the community to come together to find and share knowledge. The new community centres may include cafés, lecture rooms and kids areas – offering lending of books, film and music; workshops; lectures; and a place to relax.

The visual identity of Just Books was created to celebrate the format of the book and the diversity and wealth of the stories and knowledge contained within. The identity is scalable both in breadth (as new sub brands are developed) and expression (from corporate to specific offerings).

Based on research on the global brand space of e-books, audiobooks and reading tablets, STEREO developed the new brand promise Discover & Share. Discovering new worlds has always been the reason for picking up a new book, but as a part of Just Books, people also get a platform for sharing and learning from each others discoveries.

EXPERIENCE / THULP! Burger

Working with typography in an Indian context is challenging but can also be extremely rewarding for brands, since it is a new way of working for many. For Benguluru restaurant chain THULP! we developed a new streetfood subbrand that utilises only one colour and one font family. This strict system, together with humorous communication, is a pairing that is unique within their brand space.

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Café Thulp! is an established brand in Bengaluru, with a visual identity inspired by American comics. To make them look more street smart and appealing among the IT office workers milling about at lunch time, we paired the American fast food aesthetic with a more refined typographic expression.

This harsh juxtaposition also comes across in communication, which blends the factual with the absurd using blunt office humour (actually inspired by The Office series). STEREO did the naming and a mini identity for the new street stalls that will be opening soon.

The project included solutions for signage, packaging, user experience, uniforms and spatial. As such, this is a fine example of how we approach brand experience projects within neatly defined contexts. The result is a more international, friendly and accessible version of Thulp!, that takes the entire user journey into account.

EXPERIENCE / CORO

When we say that we build experiences, that entails anything from visual identity, UX and digital design, to spatial and event branding. One client that we have helped in all of these areas is Co-lab Roskilde. We chose this name for them (CORO for short) because they are a cutting-edge think tank and facilitator of social innovation projects. We are proud to be working with clients who want to improve society, and we have supplied them with an ambitious strategy. Together we can create growth to be proud of.

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What started as a strategy and naming process, has grown into a steady relationship that has so far resulted in a website for CORO and their members (developed together with AAFF) and other branded materials. We have helped make the somewhat complex story about Triple Helix cooperation and social innovation relevant and attractive.

In 2017, CORO are organising what will be an annual COconference for the first time, and STEREO are responsible for the name and visual expression of the event.

WE EXECUTE IN 360°

The complete experience of a brand relies on the emotional appeal of crafted details and real content. Consistent execution across all touchpoints is a must for creating real impact. Without a holistic and integrated brand design, all the bold ideas in the world won’t help you. We deliver high-quality execution and craftsmanship that captures the user’s imagination and delivers on the promise of the brand.

We have selected a few cases where strategy, communication and design come together for impact and engagement.

EXECUTION / Roskilde University

We implement design and communication for all kinds of formats and channels. Executions range from internal and external campaigns to digital content such, as well as moving images and photography. Whether it’s internal or external, we work directly with our clients to find the essence of what needs to be said. It’s in the DNA of Roskilde University to work with real problems in the real world. To honour this legacy and benefit from it, STEREO have created their recruitment campaigns and established a new position for them as ”The Real University”.

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Having the created the original campaign “Hvad er problemet?” (What’s the problem?) at another agency, Roskilde University or RUC, approached us to create a follow-up campaign. The result was a somewhat more far-reaching effort, that expanded on the idea of problem-based learning, so emblematic of the Roskilde institution. Because RUC is all about working to solve real problems in the real world – as opposed to the abstraction of mathematics and traditional academics – you could say that RUC is the university of the real. What do you really want to do?

That became the name of the new campaign (“Hvad vil du i virkeligheden?”) and we set about portraying both bachelor and masters students to find out what problems out there in the world, they really wanted to solve. For each student, a small universe was created, including a portrait in a setting connected to their chosen problem as well still lifes of objects that symbolised it, according to themselves.

A campaign website was designed by us, and together with digital agency Kadaver a social media plan was set up to share the individual stories, in the students’ own words. The goal was to create a sympathetic relation between prospective students and these role models or ambassadors they could look up to. Rather than being perfect students, these people were just like you and me, facing more problems than they could solve. But that is the reality of RUC, and the only way to push innovation forward.

The 2016 campaign photos were taken by Lasse Dearman.

EXECUTION / Crescent University

What we learnt from the RUC campaigns, we have utilised in a full rebranding of Crescent University in India. They are one of the region’s top universities, with high aspirations both in India and abroad. However, their brand has been somewhat lacking. For STEREO it has been a fantastic opportunity to show the actual impact a complete brand overhaul can have on all kinds of stakeholders. With a new, common visual identity across all schools, a promise that really saturates the brand, a communication concept and new campaigns to draw the best talent – Crescent now leaves no one untouched.

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Crescent University is situated just outside Chennai and is equipped with an extensive lush and calm campus, with modern facilities. It has a history as a technical college, originally devoted to muslim youths, because the self-made founder was devoted to giving back to kids of the same modest origins that he himself came from. Today, the university’s mission is to find and feed that same flame of entrepreneurship among young people of all backgrounds.

To match their highly contemporary approach to problem based teaching, the visual identity had to reach the same level of boldness and modernity that international competitors embody. STEREO were tasked with a complete rebranding of the university, that started with advising them on the name of the university itself. From there, the logo was redesigned and we introduced new colours and typography.

STEREO has given them a new photo style and have done the first round of photography for their future image bank – together with photographer Claus Praeger-Jahnsen. These will be used on the new website, for which we have done the design, information architecture and user experience.

The most radical change has been the introduction of a new communication concept, that builds on the brand promise “Reimagine Possibilities”. By establishing the acronym CU as an active element in communication, we have created an engine that can encompass the full range of possibilities studying at Crescent offers. CU in business, CU in innovation, CU in court, CU in Chennai.

Coupled with the new palette, the new corporate font and its matching icon set — Crescent have all the tools needed to create engaging content. Which is an ongoing project for STEREO, that has only just begun. We look forward to showing you more.

EXECUTION / HTX Roskilde

Working with impact locally, can be more straightforward, but it’s not easier. When a highschool in Roskilde wanted to be more independent from the college they are organisationally tied to, STEREO had a real dilemma. Rather creating a new brand, we created a campaign for them. Because the way you pose a question determines what kind of answers you get. HTX Roskilde want to attract tomorrow’s innovators, regardless of gender and ethnicity. By getting their own way of speaking and looking, they have taken their first step towards independence, just like any other teenager.

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Natural Sciences is not just about Newton and Pascal anymore – it’s about Julian Assange and Elon Musk. To help young people associate the burning platform of today’s challenges with school, we created a campaign based on big questions: How do we understand the threat of nation-sponsored hacking? How do we prevent travellers from ruining the environment? These are the type of questions students at HTX Roskilde are now asked.

The technical highschool in Denmark offers a contemporary take on everything from programming to biomedicine. To help bring more teenagers into the HTX programme (and eventually on to study science at university) STEREO developed a campaign called ”We ask the questions, we the create solutions” , which coupled tricky questions from a range of subjects with photographs of the tools we have to create new solutions.

The concept is perfectly suited for student co-creation and social sharing, as they ask their own questions and imagine their own tools. In this way, STEREO has helped create a more diverse and modern image of the Roskilde school. It is also the first step towards establishing the school as an individual brand, after a long association with the city’s technical college RTS. The new campaign identity builds on a simple and flexible system that can eventually be developed into a complete brand.